


Road Work Ahead

by Thebipear



Category: Pocket Monsters: Sword & Shield | Pokemon Sword & Shield Versions
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Pokemon, Alternate Universe - Road Trip, Angst, Fluff, Humor, Multi, Slow Burn, Strangers to Lovers, a bit of everything really
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:48:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26784682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thebipear/pseuds/Thebipear
Summary: Some travel to find themselves, some do it for the pleasure of it, some are running away from something... and some just find themselves sharing an old van with two strangers, the infinite horizon bringing an uncertain future with it.There are countless roads leading to each destination, and countless destinations to find.
Relationships: Dande | Leon/Kibana | Raihan/Nezu | Piers
Comments: 7
Kudos: 9





	Road Work Ahead

**Author's Note:**

> The title may or may not be a WIP (I wrote it half-ironically, but I'm warming up to it lol)
> 
> This fic was born because I miss going backpacking with friends, and then it evolved and turned into its own story and all that. The wonders of writing, I guess ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> You can find me either on my SwSh [Twitter](https://twitter.com/thebipear) account or on my personal [Tumblr](https://thebipear.tumblr.com). Don't hesitate to hit me up and talk/scream at me, I'd love to make friends!
> 
> Have a good day and stay safe! ٩(^ᴗ^)۶

_Route 10 (approaching Wyndon)_

Thunder echoed under the heavy clouds, sky turned into an infinite grey dome that threatened to split the earth in half with an impending storm. The van’s windscreen was covered in condensation, turning the world outside into a smudged mishmash of lights. Driving was turning more and more difficult by the second.

The unmistakable lights and shape of a service station emerged over the horizon, so Piers pulled off as soon as he approached it. There was some sort of… construction between the gas station and a single-floor building, something that looked like it wasn’t finished. It had a roof, though, so Piers decided to park under it. The van protested the manoeuvre, letting out a noisy screech and abruptly stalling when the front was still outside the cover of the roof.

Knowing that trying to park properly when the van didn’t want to collaborate was a lost cause, Piers made sure that nothing valuable could be seen from outside —specifically, he made sure the guitar case in the back seat was completely hidden from sight—, grabbed the essentials and left the vehicle.

As soon as he stepped outside, a gust of wind pushed him with so much unexpected force that he almost fell down. The wind was cold and unrelenting, making his ponytail lash out wildly. The air was charged, anticipating one hell of a storm. Piers breathed in. The menacing atmosphere and the echo of distant thunder felt liberating in a way. Specially after being stuck in that dingy van for so long.

Approaching the single-floor building, he saw that it was divided in two halves: one of them was a tiny grocery store, probably understocked but most likely enough for him to get some supplies; the other half was an equally little bar, warm light pouring through the windows into the greyish world outside. All of it was a bit too shabby-looking for a service station so near Wyndon. Not that Piers minded that. What he did mind was that the place was obviously intended for resting for a bit and going back to the road, which would be a problem if the storm hit soon. Tough luck.

A wave of warmth punched him in the face when he opened the crystal door to the bar. The ding of the tiny bell above the doorframe was drowned out by a myriad of voices, too loud and unruly for how early it still was. The cacophony came mainly from a group of tables that had been shoved together, taking up about half of the total bar space, occupied by some rough-looking guys who were drinking and loudly blabbering about who knows what. There was also quite a boisterous conversation going on just next to the bar, a battle of shouts that fought to be heard over the others. 

The only reason why Piers didn’t immediately turn around and leave was because he had been driving for almost ten hours straight. He _did_ need to rest for a bit and refill the tank, both the van’s and his own.

He looked for a place to sit, as far away from all the ruckus as possible. He was specifically looking for a table with only one seat, ideally tucked away in a corner and half-covered in shadows. A place to be left alone in. He’d recently discovered that there were quite a lot of people who wanted conversation with lone travellers like him. Some of them wanted way more than a conversation. A few were incredibly insistent, as his still aching knuckles could attest.

His rotten luck showed its ugly head again, as there wasn’t a place like that. With a sigh, Piers resorted to sitting in one end of the bar, next to a couple that were two minutes away from sneaking out into the bathroom or a dark corner outside the building. Disgusting, but at least they’d leave him in peace.

He ordered the cheapest non-alcoholic drink he could think of —something he wasn’t used to yet— and tried to distract himself from all the noise around him by thinking about his next move. It was still early enough to look for a place to crash that night, but if he couldn’t he had to find at least some kind of cover. He didn’t trust the van to endure the storm.

His drink came. Piers took a sip without much of a hurry, feeling how it calmed his stomach a little bit. Not wanting to see the couple next to him even from his peripheral vision, he looked through the window on his left. The rain had already started to fall, leaving wet trails and splashes on the glass. It seemed to be quite strong, but the cacophony inside the bar drowned out the world outside. There was a specially loud bloke shouting from the other end of the bar, his voice possessing that cheery tone that Piers usually ran from. He moved his stool to sit a little bit more to the left.

Outside, a small crowd of people were approaching the bar seeking shelter from the rain. There were some lightning flashes accompanied by a rumbling that Piers couldn’t hear but could feel. The way the people’s clothes tried to fly away from their bodies told him that the wind was even stronger than before. A hell of a storm, indeed.

There was also a curious exchange going on just outside the window. A guy wearing something that could compete for the title of “tackiest expensive tracksuit in existence” was talking to another guy hidden in a sea of baggy, dark clothes. Both stances were tense, and tracksuit guy was frantically looking to the sides, most likely looking for some help. Piers could smell the mugging from where he sat.

It wasn’t his problem, though, so he focused his attention on the glass in front of him. It had lost most of its transparency, no doubt from too many trips to the dishwasher. Did the job, though. Piers took another, longer sip. He couldn’t stay for much longer in there. Didn’t want to, either.

The tiny ding of the bell rose over all the noise, somehow. Piers turned halfway and saw tracksuit guy on the doorstep, pale and petrified. The other one stood directly behind him. A bolt of lightning coming through the door brought out an unmistakable metallic glint under a dark sleeve. Piers tensed up involuntarily, legs prepared to…

He forced himself to turn away. Not his problem. What if some stranger got mugged in a shabby bar on the side of the road? He shouldn’t have behaved so ingenuously, stopping to talk to a stranger in a place like that and making that face that openly showed how much out of place he was, how it was the first time he’d found himself in a situation like that.

He looked so inexperienced.

So helpless.

Piers smashed the bar, leaving there a bill that he didn’t really look at before taking it out, and got up to leave. When he turned around, he saw that tracksuit guy was still petrified under the doorframe.

And his wide, golden eyes made direct contact with Piers’.

Ah, _fuck_.

Piers took a step forward—

“Hey! That guy has a knife!” The loud bloke from the other side of the bar shouted, all cheer gone from his voice.

Chaos ensued. In a second, the mugger turned around trying to run away, only to directly collide with someone who was trying to enter, both of them falling to the floor. Loud bloke —who was also incredibly tall— threw himself into the scene, followed by a number of the other loud guys at the tables, their attitude telling that they thought they were joining a common bar fight.

Piers decided to leave. As the front door was blocked and the chaos grew by the second, he resorted to the old trick of escaping through the bathroom window. He ran to the back of the bar, looking for it. Said bathroom was tiny and kinda filthy, but mercifully empty. The square window looked a tad too narrow, but he climbed to it nonetheless.

It took some squeezing through, but fortunately he was skinny enough to get to the other side. He easily broke the fall and got up, exposed again to the full force of the wind.

It had been quite some time since Piers had last saw a storm like that one. The sky was so dark it seemed to be nighttime already, bolts of lightning sporadically bathing everything in a harsh white to contrast it. He ran to the van, struggling against the wind that wanted to knock him over and the rain hitting him from all directions. It was so cold that each drop touching his skin felt like a needle.

Piers didn’t even bother to try and dry himself up a little before starting the vehicle. The old thing came to life with a guttural noise that didn’t promise anything good. Maybe he lightly hit the car next to him, and sped up a little too abruptly, and skidded a bit too much on the wet pavement. Maybe his heart was thundering, echoing the storm outside. Maybe the whole situation had made him a bit nervous.

To get back to the road he had to take a roundabout —of _fucking_ course—, but as he saw no other cars around, he simply went right through it. The van bounced, making everything inside jump as well, Piers included. And the instant his foot left the clutch pedal the van stalled again.

The colourful swear blurted out by Piers was overshadowed by an incredibly loud noise, one that made his ears ring and that hit the van with a shockwave at the same time that the world faded to a pure, blinding white.

After a couple of confusing seconds, Piers saw people pouring out from the bar, running around like headless chickens. A column of smoke rose from one side of the building, fighting the rain and wind on its way.

Piers started the van again, a string of _what the fuck_ s tied together as if they could form a rope to aid him in pulling the van as far away from the gas station as possible. However, he couldn’t really speed up without risking running over someone.

The van made its way to the road slowly, stumbling through the fleeing customers and skidding on the pavement now and again. Piers nervously tapped his fingers on the wheel.

After a minute the road in front of him finally cleared, so he changed gears and prepared to slam the gas and—

A loud _thud_ made him stop. Something had hit the front of the van. No, not something, someone. Someone had thrown themselves at the front of his moving van.

When he focused his sight he could see through the dampened glass that it was no other than the tall, loud bloke, gesturing wildly at him and mouthing something. To boot, tracksuit guy stood beside him too.

Piers rolled down his window, tongue already anxious to spew the strongest insult he knew, but he was interrupted by a second, equally loud and dangerous lightning bolt.

What was that about lightning bolts never falling on the same place?

In a split second decision that probably wasn’t the best of his life, he stretched backwards to unlock the sliding door.

“Get in!” He shouted, regretting the words as soon as they left his mouth.

The other two didn’t lose an instant. Tall bloke opened the sliding door and got in —thankfully he went to the back instead of climbing to the backseat—, followed by the other. He was saying something that Piers didn’t even deign to listen to.

“Ya better grab onto something!” He exclaimed, slamming the gas.

The _thuds_ he heard from the back, definitely from those two falling over, were satisfying in a way. He didn’t have the time to revel in it, though.

The van screamed, drawing the pattern of its wheels on the pavement, and joined the road going a tad over the speed limit.

There was a stretch of absolute silence, only interrupted by the pouring rain and thunder outside. Piers watched the road as he waited for his heart to calm down, trying not to think too much about his two unexpected passengers yet. His priority was to find the next service station or someplace similar to wait out the storm. Then he could tell them to fuck off.

“So…” Tall bloke’s voice finally broke the silence. “That was wild, huh.”

His comment went without an answer at first. Then there was an incredibly awkward laugh, presumably uttered by tracksuit guy. Piers’ fingers grabbed the wheel with far more force than necessary.

“Well, that was an interesting way of meeting new people. I’m Raihan, and you?”

Piers slowed down, realising he was too close to the car just in front of them.

“Leon.” Tracksuit guy didn’t seem to want to interact either. Good.

When it became obvious that Piers wouldn’t respond, tall bloke spoke again.

“Let our saviour be a mysterious entity, then.” He didn’t seem to have lost any cheerfulness. On the contrary, he sounded amused. “So, Leon, what’s your story? How did you end up almost being mugged in a bar on the side of the road?”

Piers felt himself bristling up. He’d have to haul those two strangers until the next service station at least, but he wouldn’t put up with their chatter.

“You, the tall one, could you do me a favour?” He asked, interrupting whatever tracksuit guy was answering, imbuing his voice with the —fakest— agreeable tone he could.

“Yeah, of course!” Tall bloke replied enthusiastically.

“Either shut yer trap or jump off.” He cut, and then added using his previous tone, “If you’d please.”

The silence that followed was welcome, but Piers had a hunch it wouldn’t last for long.

**Author's Note:**

> It's almost 4am and I'm exhausted, so if you find some typos or things that make no sense, please do tell
> 
> Also, I just realised this is 95% description, so... if you've reached this point I hope you liked this block of text lol


End file.
